Bhopal's Shame: BMHRC doctors conducted drug trials on gas victims, patients died

The doctors at the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre unlawfully conducted drug trials on gas victims without their knowledge and this resulted in deaths of as many as 10 patients.

This horrific news has stunned citizens. Though drug trials were banned, the NGOs fighting for gas victims have presented documents accessed through RTI that cardiologist Dr Skand Trivedi, Dr Subodh Varshney and Dr HK Pandey were involved in this unethical practice that should have stopped in 2008.

The wife of Nasir Khan, who died recently, said that her family was not aware that Khan was subjected to the illegal drug trial and tested for results of Clopidrogel drug. The role of BMHRC administration has also come under scanner after the revelation that trials of the medicines Televancian, Fondaparinux and Tigecycline were held on patients.

Gas victims' groups allege that the consultants at the hospital made Rs 10 million or Rs 1 crore which they obtained from pharmaceutical companies in lieu of these drug testings. The Institutional Review Board secretary is the wife of Dr Skand Trivedi and she gave permission to trials though the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) was aware of just one drug trial in the hospital. The NGOs want criminal charges to be pressed and case registered against these doctors.

The BMHRC was established to provide free treatment to patients and sufferers of the horrific gas tragedy. In 1984 leakage of deadly MIC gas from US company Union Carbide's Bhopal plant had resulted in over 25,000 deaths and other ailments to nearly half-a-million residents of the City.

Ironically the victims were treated as guinea pigs and drug trials conducted on them at the behest of international pharma companies who generally don't get permissions to hold trials with such ease in other countries.

Clinical Drug Trials: Doctors' role under scanner in Madhya Pradesh

The role of a number of doctors in Madhya Pradesh has come under scanner for testing drugs on patients as part of Multi National Companies' (MNCs) clinical drug trials.

The strength and effects of the medicines were tested on poor patients without their consent and knowledge. In Indore and Bhopal, doctors in many private and government hospitals conducted these trials that are illegal and unethical.

Drug manufacturers who don't easily get consenting patients and volunteers in other countries are offering huge sums to the doctors in India. As a result patients who are unaware fell victim to these nefarious designs and often suffer horrifiying medical complications that can even lead to deaths.

A complaint has been made against six doctors in Indore. NGO Swasth Samarthan Sewa Samiti has lodged its complaint with the government. But the number of doctors involved in the unethical practice is estimated to number around 100.

The doctors have been getting crores for such trials and the money is deposited directly in their accounts. It is not known how many children and under-age persons have been put to such tests and the after-effects of such trials on them.

Now the issue has reached the police. The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and Lokayukta are now initiating inquiry. Some MLAs have also raised the issue in the current Assembly session  but the real question is whether the guilty would be punished?

Indore's Maharaja Yashwant Rao (MY) Hospital is at the centre of the controversy as most trials have been conducted in this hospital which is attached to the MGM medical college. There are reports from other colleges and hospitals in MP also.

Doctors who have brought bad name to the noble profession and compromised on the health of patients, including vulnerable children, must not be allowed to go unpunished for violating government guidelines and keeping everybody in dark to mint money.